City council is saying that Toronto residents are willing to pay an extra $500 to $800 or more a year to finance a new round of transportation improvements.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has been showing up in council chambers wearing an enormous Toronto Maple Leafs team sweater. He wore it Wednesday at the McDonald's Eaton Centre Urban Eatery location in support of the 20th anniversary of McHappy Day in Toronto on May 8, 2013. Far right is McDonald's president and CEO, John Betts.

Out of the morass and chaos of a rudderless city, Toronto city council emerges today a cantankerous constellation of near-dysfunction, yet miraculously clutching the prospects of an unprecedented burst of transit improvements.

Style points don’t count in politics. What matters is that city council is poised to land on the right side of history in the most monumental vote of this four-year term; maybe in several decades.

A fractious council — spooked by a mayor who attempts to delay and destroy transit, while professing a love for subways — is mustering enough courage to vote in favour of taxes for transit construction.

Council is leaning that way even as the minority dissenters, led by Mayor Rob Ford, promise to defeat them at the polls in the 2014 election.

They do so, knowing that the provincial Liberal government is using municipalities as cover for raising taxes.

They do so because the majority of councillors recognize that municipalities are out of options if they are to expand our transportation networks.

The Toronto region needs new subways, LRT, bus ways and GO Trains. While a modest build-out will cost $50 billion over 25 years, the plan is short $34 billion. So council is looking to endorse some of the 11 “revenue tools” the provincial transportation agency, Metrolinx, has identified.

In other words, city council is saying, Toronto residents are willing to pay an extra $500 to $800 or more a year to finance a new round of transportation improvements. It’s a huge political gamble, but a calculated one.

Road congestion costs each household $2,800 a year in lost productivity. Commuters grow frustrated and desperate, to the point of grudgingly accepting the need for road tolls or gas taxes or parking fees. Even the Toronto region board of trade countenances the prospect of higher taxes. Meanwhile, the province, which largely funded transit construction until Mike Harris showed up, is staring at a deficit as education and health-care costs skyrocket.

So, the Toronto region finds itself in a peculiar position — seeing a tiny window of opportunity to expand its limited transit options, but having to embrace taxes to do so. Serendipitously, city council can embrace the tax tools without implementing them. And the Liberal government at Queen’s Park can implement them while saying the municipalities asked for the revenues.

The vote’s intentions could be scuttled — we have a minority government at Queen’s Park and the opposition parties are promising to derail its transit plans — but should the city’s advice survive, future generations will point to May 9, 2013 as the day the Toronto-centred region bravely scaled the befuddling hurdle of how to pay for its transportation needs.

The large urban mayors — representing the likes of Mississauga, Markham and Vaughan — have already given their support for the transportation funding train. Those who are hesitant had been waiting on Toronto’s response. And a positive vote is a clear signal to Metrolinx that the largest city in the province is onside.

With such a possibility, city council needs the consummate skills of an engaged mayor willing to forge a consensus among the 45 councillors. Mayor Ford chose the direct opposite tact — the only one he knows. He divided, he badmouthed, he disparaged, he turned councillor against councillor, he created a climate where individual councillors had to try and herd cats without the aid and authority of the mayor’s office.

Predictably, the debate and discussion became a free-for-all on the floor of council.

Ford tried to delay the debate, refusing to take the issue to council in time for advice to Metrolinx. Council had to use a rare two-thirds majority vote to override him. His response was to disengage, occasionally showing up in the council chamber wearing an enormous Toronto Maple Leafs team sweater.

So, on one of the most important votes in the history of the city, the mayor is sidelined, a caricature on the pages of history.

Council adjourned Wednesday night to continue the vote Thursday. There are so many motions and permutations that the whole exercise could collapse under its own weight.

But city council has shown itself to be adept at skating around any hurdle or obstacle the administration erects. This is the latest.

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